In man's beating death, doctor asked cops to return to hospital because he suspected homicide

Two hours after a pair of New Orleans police officers dropped off a comatose man at Charity Hospital, an emergency room doctor made a phone call.

Robair family photoRaymond Robair

Dr. Robert Sigillito testified Wednesday that he called police to request that the officers return to the hospital on that July 2005 morning.

The man that they had reportedly found unresponsive on a Treme street corner, Raymond Robair, in fact had been severely beaten. And the doctor believed it might be a possible homicide, according to police dispatch records of the call.

A New Orleans police dispatcher broadcast Sigillito's request, looking for the officers who last saw Robair. Records show that no one responded.

The government rested its civil rights case against NOPD officers Melvin Williams and Matthew Dean Moore on Wednesday, after the testimony of the medical professionals, an alleged witness to the police beating, the police dispatcher and an FBI agent. When court resumes Thursday morning, the defense will present its side.

Federal prosecutors allege that Williams fatally beat Robair, a 48-year-old neighborhood handyman, during a street stop in late July 2005. Prosecutors also allege that Moore, a rookie, wrote a bogus report to cover up the crime. Williams faces a federal civil rights charge in the beating. He and Moore each face an obstruction charge for allegedly writing a false report, while Moore also is charged with lying to the FBI.

Moans in the background

Records show that NOPD Unit 934 -- the police cruiser Williams and Moore rode in -- initially radioed in a "miscellaneous incident" report at the corner of Dumaine and North Robertston streets at about 9:14 that morning. A minute later, the officers told the dispatcher to reclassify the incident as a report of an intoxicated person.

Melvin Williams Williams faces a federal civil rights charge in the beating, and an obstruction charge for allegedly writing a false police report.

Prosecutors played an audio snippet of a radio call in which an officer -- it was unclear whether it is Moore or Williams -- tells a police dispatcher to mark them down as being at Dumaine and North Robertson streets. The moans of a man could be heard clearly in the background.

The officers allegedly dropped off a critically wounded Robair at the hospital, in a wheelchair. Hospital staffers testified that the officers were cagey and did not provide their names, badge or unit numbers, which is standard procedure.

Medical documents show the officers said they found the man on the ground, and thought he was likely the victim of an overdose. They left the hospital and returned shortly afterward to tell a nurse that they had found crack rocks in the back of the police car, only to leave again, the nurse testified. Meanwhile, the hospital staff worked to mend Robair.

More than 90 minutes into their efforts, a battery of new tests discovered blood in his abdomen, a sign of severe internal bleeding. He was rushed to the operating room and doctors tried in vain to stop the hemorrhaging.

Robair's spleen was later found to have been lacerated in several places. It pushed blood across his insides -- blood that wouldn't coagulate, blood that caused a heart attack.

Matthew Dean Moore faces an obstruction charge for allegedly writing a false police report, and a charge of lying to the FBI.

Sigillito, the attending physician, connected with the police dispatcher that morning.

"I presumed they would do an investigation," Sigillito said. It wasn't until years later, amid a federal investigation, that he would learn the names of Moore and Williams.

Sigillito and a doctor who worked as a resident assistant testified Wednesday that they had never seen officers drop off a man in critical condition. Sure, officers transported people with minor injuries, but never someone so near death, they said.

Defense attorneys tried to cast aspersions on the medical decisions Sigillito and others made that morning -- a tactic they used with every medical professional to testify for the government. The attorneys noted, for example, that Robair was not brought into the operating room until two hours after he was dropped off at the hospital. And a radiologist's report indicated that Robair had one fractured rib, though pathologists would later determine he had five fractured ribs in two different areas.

Attorney Frank DeSalvo, who represents Williams, pressed the doctor: What could have happened at Charity Hospital to cause his spleen to be crushed?

"I know of nothing that could have caused that," an exasperated Sigillito said.

FBI agent takes the stand

Moore allegedly later told an FBI agent that he talked to Sigillito that morning, a charge the doctor denied.

FBI agent John Dalide testified Wednesday that Moore, in two separate interviews, lied about other aspects of the case, including the encounter with Robair.

He said Moore told him that Williams, while driving the police cruiser, alerted him to a man pointing at another man running down the street. Moore said there were numerous people -- "crackheads just drinking" -- on the street, Dalide said. Moore recounted bolting from the vehicle and said Robair ran into the street, made an odd move, lost his shoe and fell to the ground, prompting Moore to jump on him and detain him, according to Dalide.

Moore allegedly said the officers checked Robair's name for warrants and ran his identification, though Dalide testified he could find no such records of their search.

Jurors also saw an NOPD "trip sheet," which is supposed to document all an officer's stops and interactions, that makes no mention of the officers' trip to Charity Hospital.

Dalide said the interview with Moore was simple and straightforward. And when he asked the officer if he or Williams ever hit or kicked Robair, Moore repeatedly answered "No," Dalide said.

Earlier Wednesday, a 43-year-old man begrudgingly took the witness stand to tell jurors he saw Williams beat and kick Robair.

Karl Hughes, a felon with a lengthy record of drug arrests, is currently in a work-release program in Terrebonne Parish, serving a drug sentence.

Hughes, in a low mumble, made his squeamishness clear from the outset.

"I don't want to be here," he said. "Being a police case, I don't really want to testify."

Hughes, a military veteran who served in the Persian Gulf War, said he is scared of the police and fearful for his family's safety.

"I know how things go in New Orleans," he said. "I don't need to be constantly harassed or put nothing on me."

Hughes said he saw Williams after Robair's death at a credit union, where the veteran officer "went off on me" and made statements that Hughes considered intimidating.

Under questioning from defense attorneys, Hughes grew hostile, and the back-and-forth became contentious.

DeSalvo ticked off Hughes' previous arrests and convictions, asking him about each one.

"Whatever drugs I was on that day, I don't remember," Hughes said at one point. "But I do remember 'Flat-Top' hitting that man."

Williams, an 18-year NOPD veteran who has worked in the Police Department's most pro-active, high-arrest units, is known in many of the city's toughest neighborhoods by that nickname, a reference to his hairstyle.

Attorney Eric Hessler pressed Hughes on statements he made to the FBI in 2008 that appeared to conflict with his current testimony. When asked if remembered telling an FBI agent that he saw officers pick Robair up and put him in a police car, Hughes shook his head.

"I don't remember," he said. "I don't even know. I don't remember."

Among the witnesses defense attorneys are expected to call: the pathologist who conducted Robair's autopsy, Dr. Paul McGarry. Moore and Williams, as well as another medical expert hired by the defense, are also expected to take the stand.